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Trailer Review: Shark Night 3D - Lunch Bait

It just wouldn't be memorial weekend without a cheesy summer horror movie to get excited about. "Shark Night 3D" has it all. College kids packing up to go to a secluded lake house to party with girls taking off their tops and boys drinking while water skiing. But what's in those waters? A shark! A big computer generated shark in 3D so you can see its teeth coming at you in the cool theater. Wow!

I'm sure none of these kids remember "Jaws 3-D" which had a shark terrorizing surface dwellers in green and red glasses many summers ago. I think that shark snuck in from the ocean into a gated marine park and ate every ticket holder that waded into the water. This updated version looks a little more gory, but the shark still looks fake and the people still act stupid.

If you don't catch this in theaters, I'm sure it'll catch you when you're bored on airplanes, in hotel rooms, and on cable when nothing else is on. Nada.

Opening September 2, 2011, Verdict: Skip

Trailer Review: The Descendants - Anxiety in Paradise

George Clooney is an actor in his own class. One to carefully choose his roles and produce challenging movies, it's always interesting to see where he'll show up next. His last movie, "The American", I enjoyed very much and it was a project he produced inspired from thrillers of the seventies. But Clooney was also its subject. A near silent picture watching his character move about in a secluded town in Italy, I thought it a self portrait of Clooney's discipline in his craft.

In "The Descendants" he's teamed up with director Alexander Payne, known for "Sideways" and the better "Election." Playing a father of two daughters who's forced to re-examine his life when his wife has an accident that puts her into the hospital only to discover she was also having an affair. Payne specializes in the male mid-life crisis and he's put other famous actors through it like Jack Nicholson and Paul Giamatti. The trailer is nothing special and adheres to the genre of a man looking a little lost and overwhelmed by his surroundings. But the environment here is Hawaii which gives it a different look. Still in the suburbs, it's with palm trees, beaches, and everyone in hawaiian shirts. But anxiety still exists in paradise and the best scene is an extended shot of Clooney running down a suburban street after a car. He's loosing the chase and it's a perfect visual metaphor for a man running out of steam. I wish there was more of that, because too much of this trailer is usual family drama with fighting, crying and ending with hugs or smiles. I find Payne a mixed bag - a good writer of dialogue, but repetitive in his subject and uninteresting in his direction. It's a little sad seeing Clooney enter middle-age, but we've never seen him be a Dad confronting teenagers in a living room. Good luck.

Opening December 16, 2011, Verdict: Wait for the Critics

Trailer Review: The Adventures of Tintin - Danger in a Blue Sweater

I own Tintin plates, coffee cups, watches, figurines, and even a calendar so you can say I'm a fan of the Belgian with a dog who has a knack for getting himself into adventures around the globe.

I was excited when I heard Steven Spielberg was directing a movie produced by Peter Jackson. He's perfect for the job because so many of his movies are inspired from Herge's books. Indiana Jones is basically a grown-up version of Tintin. Someone in constant movement, riding cars, motorcycles, ships and running on his own feet as he chases and gets chased to solve mysteries around the world.

But Spielberg has his work cut out. What fans love about Tintin is not just the stories, but the unique look. In bright colors, every panel is an exquisite design of graphic beauty. Tintin has been done before, from early stop motion to live action and still was missing the colorful excitement of the books. But now technology offers a chance to capture that elusive spirit.

The biggest question for fans is what will Tintin look like and it's obvious the filmmakers knows this by avoiding his appearance. I can't think of a recent trailer where the main character is not revealed. That strategy is usually reserved for villains or monsters, but this trailer only shows his face at the end and it's a brief shot, but the most important. It's a motion captured realistic face which is a shock, because it fails to uphold the graphic beauty of Tintin's iconic features. The look of the film is closer to Robert Zemeckis's animation projects like "Polar Express".

I'm nervously on the fence for this. There's a wonderful clip where Tintin is running out the door, chasing a car and he fires a few rounds from a gun as it drives away. With his blue sweater and blonde hair, and the charcoal grey of night, the scene captures the excitement from the books. But his face at the end drains the enthusiasm by looking like another run of the mill tech demo of computer mimicry. Please don't screw this up.

Opening December 23, 2011, Verdict: Wait for the Critics

Well this is more like it

Well this is more like it. The pushing, cross-checking, the feral sprints up several flights of red-carpeted stairs by people who don't sprint. Wild animals sense a storm and run away . Here, it's the opposite. Terrence Malick's 'The Tree of Life' was scheduled to begin at 8:30 this morning. At 8, before the Palais was even in view, I saw people speeding toward it. - Wesley Morris, Boston Globe Link.

In 'The Tree of Life,' a cosmic head movie of the most ambitious order, Terrence Malick reaches high, his ecstatic camera and thoughts soaring. - Manola Dargis, NYTimes Link.

Whereas Malick's 'The Thin Red Line' maintained a dialectic tension between James Jones's novel and Malick's adaptation, as well as battlefield combat and Emersonian transcendentalism, the tension here seems to exist in Malick's head. 'The Tree of Life' is less profound than profoundly eccentric, while too solemn, pompous, and genteel to be truly crazy. The movie disengages the mind, even as it dulls the senses. - J. Hoberman, Village Voice Link.

The movie with the greatest trailer so far this year finally got released at Cannes today and the hype was oppressive enough that every critic had to skip their leisurely croissants and cappuccino morning and get their asses into the theater.

The director, Terrence Malick, was swinging for the fences and it looks like he made contact with the ball, but it went so high, that no one saw it come down. Ergo, no one knows how to call it. The reactions have been all over the map with boos and applause on opening morning. At Mubi, David Hudson, has excellent coverage from converts to skeptics.

Can't wait to see it.

Trailer Review: The Future - The Risks of Adoption

First thing I noticed about Miranda July's new movie is she found the male version of herself in the form of Hamish Linklater. With his curly hair and frightened look, he has squared the quality of July's quirkiness. The square root of Miranda July's work has always been about herself and her struggle with existence. Her nervous sensibility was appreciated by many with "Me and You and Everyone We Know" from 2005 which starred herself as a performance artist living in Los Angeles. Although I didn't think much of it worked, at its best moments, it was funny and sad showing the difficulty of making meaningful connections in our lives.

A cat with a broken leg narrates the start of this trailer who tells the story of July and Linklater coming to an animal hospital to adopt a cat. The adoption makes this couple deal with responsibility which brings up larger concerns of their approaching middle age. The movie is an existential crisis of what each has avoided and wants for themselves and their remaining future.

No doubt, a question we all face, I'm wondering if this movie could dramatize the empathy of that experience or will July's quirkiness get in the way. Dancing in front of a computer and a talking cat are odd touches that could trivialize the subject and alienate audiences. A better scene is July seeing two pregnant friends and imagining their children growing up before her eyes which makes her yell out the window. The tension between personal and accessible was what limited the strength of her last movie. "I don't know anything, I'm just a rock in the sky," the moon says to Linklater in crisis. Funny but true and yet we still sing about it.

Opening July 29, 2011, Verdict: Wait for the Critics

Trailer Review: Page One: Inside the New York Times - Deadwood

I'm a stockholder in the New York Times and these days that feels like being a shipmate swabbing the deck on the ship of fools. I was surprised to find someone doing a documentary on the 'The Gray Lady'. It's like sneaking into a monastery to capture the last members and practice of benedictine monks before time sweeps them away.

Certainly, the threat of staying in business is one of the subjects addressed in this documentary as staff ponder their employment after announcements have been made for a round of layoffs. But it's also about how the news is gathered and made into the front pages of the paper and some of the journalists that make that happen. One of them is David Carr. Carr's beat is on technology and media and he loves to talk, so he comes across as this movie's star. With his former past as a drug addict, the current shifting realities don't seem to him that strange of a trip. He paddles through the office and purrs from his cubicle comfortably predicting on where the destiny of journalism is going.

Where is it going? There's shots of newspapers being printed and sorted by robots on a clean factory floor and it looked completely strange how all that technology is making something so handmade. A reverse engineering to the past. I can't wait for the sequel.

Opening June 24, 2011, Verdict: Must See

Trailer Review: Trollhunter - Scandinavian Safari

A woman runs through the woods and up to the camera turning her head back and warning of the danger coming our way. There's a flash in the distance and then a large troll with three heads breaks through the trees. "Something Big is Coming" yellow titles pronounce. Big and ugly more like it. Trolls. Those creatures that show up in some of the worst B-movies ever made get to star in their own fake documentary inspired by "Blair Witch Project" and "Cloverfield" but without the seriousness. There's no tense build-up to the search or reveal of these trolls. They show up right at the start in this trailer chasing the camera crew which tells me this doc is more an adventure comedy then a horror movie.

Still, it seems to show charm and originality due to its unique Norwegian location and characters. The effects look more realistic than other fantasies because of the many night time shots. I always thought trolls were knee-high creatures under bridges but there are many in this movie that are ten stories tall. You may need to get under a bridge for cover. Who knew.

Opening June 10, 2011, Verdict: Wait for the Critics

Trailer Review: Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides - Now With Mermaids

I'm surprised to see another Pirates of the Caribbean movie. I thought captain Jack Sparrow's adventures ended with a trilogy, but this new version called "On Stranger Tides" suggests a new cocktail mixed by your bartender who wants you to taste for free. I don't think this movie is on the house. But I have to say, this series is kind of fun because it's never taken itself too seriously. Even the last one, that pushed a ridiculous climax in a whirlpool between battling ships in the ocean, like the whole thing was being flushed down the toilet, saw pirates still throwing jokes between swordplay.

I think actors love to be pirates. It brings them back to their first encounters with imagination when they were kids dressing up like it's halloween and crossing cardboard or plastic swords. It's why these movies are so well cast. This one has managed to star the great Penelope Cruz and Ian McShane without losing Johnny Depp or Geoffrey Rush and other crew. It's the fourth movie and there's no burn-out.

The story is no different from the others. Sparrow is now looking for the Fountain of Youth which means everyone is following along across oceans, onto islands and into jungles to the same thumping score. Directed by Rob Marshall instead of the series regular Gore Verbinski, the change of guard doesn't make this film look any different. "It is not the destination, so much as the journey," Sparrow advises at one point in the trailer. Just like the ride at Disney World.

Opening May 20, 2011, Verdict: Wait for the Critics